There are many biometric measuring devices in the marketplace today. While the use of these devices by physicians is fairly straightforward, many of these devices may also be used by in-home nurses for the disabled or for elderly people who are shut-in. When used in the home, the readings may be reported to an appropriate health reporting agency. In order to ensure the proper reporting of readings, many of these devices are provided with a communication interface that connects to the health reporting agency through the telephone system.
Most biometric devices used in the home have their own proprietary interfaces to transfer the reading from the biometric device to a hub or IT system of the health agency. The existence of the different interfaces is a significant problem for health agencies because it can be very costly to maintain and develop the interfaces for a large number of different biometric devices.
One type of biometric device that is in common use by healthcare professionals is the glucometer. There are literally dozens of different glucometers on the market today, with dozens more that have been made obsolete.
A number of health reporting agencies (e.g., HoMed) currently provide support for home-bound elderly people through the use of biometric meters that receive and report results through the telephone system. Because of the expense, most agencies choose only a few of the most frequently used biometric devices and proceed to develop interfaces for those chosen devices.
In general, the elderly could benefit from a greater availability of biometric devices with a standard interface. However, there is very little agreement among manufacturers as to how to develop a standardized interface. Accordingly, a need exists for better methods of interfacing biometric devices.